A standard motor-vehicle door latch such as described in commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 4,165,112 has an eye-type bolt formed of a U-section piece of sheet steel and having upper and lower sides that converge toward each other like a wedge pointed toward the door. A latch housing mounted on the door has an elastomeric guide forming an outwardly open seat having a pair of diverging sides that can fit complementarily over the bolt. A locking fork is pivotal in this latch housing to engage through a vertically throughgoing hole in the bolt and hold it tightly in place. The sheet-metal parts of the bolt are fitted with an elastomeric insert made of a plastic material to reduce noise and maintain a tight fit.
Commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 4,834,435 describes a bolt assembly for a motor-vehicle latch wherein the assembly is secured to a doorpost and coacts with a latch fork. It has a metallic U-shaped yoke having an inner flange adapted to be secured to the doorpost and an outer flange spaced therefrom, forming a fork-receiving space therewith, and having an outer surface turned away from the inner flange. A metallic bolt is fixed to the two flanges and extends generally perpendicularly therebetween. A nonmetallic resilient sleeve surrounds the bolt between the flanges and a nonmetallic cover overlies at least the outer surface of the outer flange.
Both of these systems are complexly made of a combination of independently manufactured metallic and plastic parts that not only must be painstakingly manufactured, but must subsequently be assembled together. The metal part is formed with various recesses and seats to which separately manufactured plastic parts must be fitted.